Lila Avilés’ second feature, Tótem, is an expertly crafted family drama that finds human connection and clashes within confined interiors.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2024

Avilés slowly builds a very powerful film, inviting us inside this home and allowing us to quietly care for her subjects while allowing us to come to our own conclusions about the spiritual or ethical motivations of each.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2024

Mesmerising, beautiful, sad and hopeful all at once.

| Aug 7, 2024

It’s difficult to make this sort of film, in which nothing of great dramatic import happens on screen, but Avilés has an ace up her sleeve: Sentíes, a first-time actor who carries the movie on her quietly expressive face.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 20, 2024

The gradual accretion of detail and the casual sketches of the various party guests are the mark of a master.

| Mar 18, 2024

With an intimate approach and keen perception of everyday life, Lila Avilés confirms her talent as one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 5, 2024

It is pain, it is joy, it is celebration, it is infinite sadness. It's 'Tótem'. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2024

The wonderful photography by Diego Tenorio and the perfect direction of the diverse cast stand out, achieving such spontaneity that these professional actors may be confused for untrained, natural performers. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2024

Impeccable filmmaking, with form and content that, yes, requires the active participation of an audience that not only watches, but must also partake thanks to Avilés' agile camera. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 1, 2024

[A] busy, affecting portrait of a loving but sometimes quarrelsome family trying to fend off their grief over impending loss with an evening to gratefully embrace what they’re about to lose...a supple, touching drama.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 1, 2024

Lila Avilés returns with a drama that focuses on a seven-year-old girl as she navigates the collapsing world around her. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 29, 2024

Tótem isn't just an intelligent, fluid, elegant, and subtle second feature, but also a balm for a male-dominated Mexican accustomed to excess, easy punches, and obviousness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 29, 2024

Confirms Avilés as a great creator of realistic situations while not having to resort to artifice to move the viewer. [Full review in Spanish]

| Feb 20, 2024

Tótem is life-affirming.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 15, 2024

There’s never a doubt that Avilés and her cast are tuned in to what matters, even when characters prioritize other concerns.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 15, 2024

It feels very organic and alive, and almost has this direct cinema quality despite being a narrative feature.

| Feb 13, 2024

Tótem manages to encompass in one home how life can be warm, sad and exciting all at once.

| Feb 12, 2024

Totem has a lively present-tense feel, an immersion in the precarious moments before a multitude of feelings can be sorted. It's also one of the few movies that deals honestly with how people cope (or don't) with mortality.

| Feb 9, 2024

A tender story that is quickly absorbing and entirely engaging. It’s a story that every family has experienced, to one degree or another, even if your family is smaller in number than the one depicted here.

| Feb 7, 2024

Director Lila Avilés' second film is domestic and universal, heartbreaking and morbidly hilarious.

| Feb 6, 2024